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PSG sent five-page complaint to UEFA about referee Aytekin

Paris Saint-Germain sent a detailed five-page letter of complaint to UEFA about the performance of referee Deniz Aytekin during last week’s extraordinary Champions League match against Barcelona. It includes a dossier of errors made by the match official. The French club have employed experts, including former international referees, to analyse the match in which Barcelona overturned a 4-0 deficit from the first leg to win 6-1 and progress into the last eight. There were a series of controversial incidents during the game with Aytekin (photo) awarding Barcelona two penalty kicks and coming under extreme pressure from the Spanish side’s players.

PSG have included eight incidents in their report which they have submitted to European football’s governing body, demanding that such mistakes are not repeated. Aytekin awarded Barcelona two penalties during the Nou Camp encounter, and PSG are unhappy with the way he handled pressure from the Catalan side’s players when making key decisions during the match. They have also raised decisions that went in Barcelona’s favour that were deemed questionable, with video evidence and photographs included to back-up their arguments. One such incident was the decision to book the Barcelona striker, Luis Suarez, for diving, only to award him a penalty after appearing to go down to the ground just as easily in the 90th minute. Another case surrounds the failure to award PSG a penalty kick when Javier Mascherano appeared to foul Angel Di Maria in the area, with the Barcelona defender admitting afterwards that he believed it was a penalty. “It is clear that I did foul Di Maria but I think that is not the reason why we eliminated PSG,” Mascherano said after the match. PSG have also raised separate incidents that include the awarding of the first penalty to Barcelona, an apparent stamp by Neymar on PSG defender Marquinhos, a handball by Barca defender Gerard Pique and also a shirt pull from the Spain international that was not picked up by any of the match officials. But despite the dossier being sent to UEFA, PSG are not demanding a replay - an online petition, with no link to the club, has topped 200,000 calling for the game to be played again - or any sanctions against Aytekin. However, PSG have told UEFA that they do not feel they received enough “respect” from the referee while at the same time obviously accepting that their team played poorly to suffer such an amazing reversal.